


That Dreamy Far-Off Look (With Her Nose Stuck in a Book)

by Missy



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Family Feels, Gen, Magic, Post-Canon, Trick or Treat: Treat, slightly eerie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:42:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27186073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: Karen only notices the effect that the Labyrinth has had on Sarah and Toby in flashes and instances, but notice she does.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	That Dreamy Far-Off Look (With Her Nose Stuck in a Book)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anaraine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaraine/gifts).



Karen doesn’t really notice the difference in her daughter until she sees the way she interacts with the rabbits that take up life in their garden. The adjustment in attitude in regard to Toby was a relief, but the fact that she addresses the rabbits as if they’re thinking humans puzzles Karen a bit.

Sarah has always been like this to some degree, running around the house with a book in her hand, pretending that she’s onstage, dramatic, loud, dreamy. Karen’s always found her to be an amusing girl, though she desperately wants her to be just a little more mature, especially when Toby’s in her care.

Karen worries less about that as time passes. The girl seems more than willing to protect him with her life these days, as if her last babysitting stint had frightened her into the arms of maturity.

Toby, too, has a much more ready smile, as if he notices something beyond her, something in the middle distance between this world and another. It’s odd, but not unusual for an infant.

When Karen brings up these strange changes in the children to Robert, he gives her a smile and says, sticking to the topic of Sarah, “it’s called puberty, darling. You went through it, too.”

“That does not explain why I caught our son having what looked like an animated babytalk session with that owl that keeps showing up outside his bedroom window.”

“Do you want me to trap it?” he asks.

“Of course not! But…”

“Every kid goes through phases,” he said. “Things will change.”

Karen grumbles and rolls over.

*** 

Three years later, Karen takes Sarah out for coffee when she’s home on spring break from her sophomore year at UCLA. Sarah talks with animated excitement about the campus, her teachers, the play she’ll be doing before becoming a sophomore.

Then, all at once, Sarah looks just beyond Karen’s shoulder. There’s something eerie about her in that minute – not in a bad way at all, but unearthly. As if she belonged to the forests and the mountains and not the common concrete and suburban tract housing that had birthed her. 

“What’s wrong?” Karen asks.

Sarah snaps back to life. She doesn’t realize that the waiter’s been staring at her, as if she’s a rare jewel among paste imitations. They’re the kind of looks she draws all the time these days, and not just because she’s become a lovely woman.

“Nothing. I thought I saw someone I knew,” she says, and smiles warmly as she sips her coffee down.

When the meal is finished, Sarah walks her stepmother over to the bus stop. Sarah doesn’t see it, but Karen notices, as Sarah shrugs the object from her shawl.

Karen boards the bus and one white owl feather tumbles from Sarah's body to the curb.


End file.
